


Danger Shall Seem Sport

by TARDIS_stowaway



Series: Illyria [2]
Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe, Angst, F/M, Humor, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-14
Updated: 2010-02-13
Packaged: 2017-10-07 06:04:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 20,864
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/62144
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TARDIS_stowaway/pseuds/TARDIS_stowaway
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rose and her alternate universe's Doctor should really leave the adventure archeology to Indiana Jones. Exploring a ruined temple, they find unfinished business from the Time War that puts them in mortal peril in a basement (of course).</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Desert

**Author's Note:**

> This story, second in the "Illyria" series, won't make much sense unless you've read "What country, friends, is this?" first.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Rose asks many questions and the Doctor has an unpleasant surprise.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Second story in the Illyria series, which begins with "What country, friends, is this?"

“Don’t people ever wonder what it sells tickets for? I mean, you can’t park in piers and carnivals all the time. Do you get people tapping at the window and trying to get service?” I inquired as the Doctor and I strode through the desert. After realizing that the TARDIS’s “malfunction” (if that circuit blew by chance then I’m a slitheen) had deposited us on an unknown planet with mysterious ruins, it had taken less than five minutes for me to fill up some canteens and drop my bag in my room. Once out of the TARDIS, I was so giddy to be traveling again that I began to tease the Doctor. It was just to see how he’d react–really, it was all in the name of science.

“Hey! It’s a great disguise! You’d have to be exceptionally daft to try to buy tickets when the sign says closed. People see that it’s closed, which makes it useless to them, and therefore most people don’t bother to think about whether it should be there at all. If they do want an explanation, you’d be surprised how many places people assume sell tickets if they’ve got a mysterious ticket booth sitting outside. People can be amazingly inventive when it comes to avoiding having to do any _real_ thinking,” said the Doctor, just as defensive when someone insulted his precious box in this universe as the Doctor from my original universe. I smiled fondly.

“Well, good disguise or not, I like it,” I reassured him.

“The chameleon circuit’s broken where you come from too, right? What’s it look like there?” he asked.

“Big blue box sorta thing…it’s a police call box from the 1950s.”

“Oh, like that’s inconspicuous,” scoffed the Doctor.

“It is! It’s plain enough not to be interesting, official-looking enough that people assume they shouldn’t mess with it, and unfamiliar enough in most of the universe that nobody assumes they can get anything from it. Plus, it’s cute,” I explained. The Doctor looked unconvinced. I rolled my eyes and turned my attention to the landscape. We were in a desert. It wasn’t the ultra-barren kind with not a living thing to be seen on towering dunes of sand, although given how sharp most of the vegetation was I would almost have preferred that. Despite the heat, I was glad I was wearing jeans. The razor-edged dry grass, prickly shrubs, and cacti (technically not cacti at all but some totally alien thorny succulent, yet another example of the marvels of convergent evolution) caught at the hoodie tied around my waist and scraped every inch of bare skin they could find. Judging by the light and the way it just kept getting hotter as we walked, it was midmorning. We walked over a fairly flat sandy plain broken by the occasional dry gully and punctuated by red rocks sculpted by erosion into towering pillars and arches. It looked like pictures I’d seen of the American southwest (still hadn’t gotten there for real unless you count underground bunkers, which I don’t. Travel with the Doctor involved going to all sorts of great places and then spending more time running through nondescript corridors than sightseeing), but the purple hopping lizards suggested that we were nowhere on Earth.

“Any clue where we are?” I asked.

“Hmmm…if I had to guess, I’d say we’re in a desert somewhere. On a planet,” he announced.

“Very helpful, Mr. Encyclopedic Knowledge of Time and Space,” I said sarcastically.

“There are hundreds of worlds with this sort of landscape and biome!” he said indignantly. “The rotation’s slower than Earth, which means we’ll have plenty of daylight, but that doesn’t narrow it down much. I could figure it out if we took some biological samples back to the TARDIS for DNA testing, but I thought it would be more interesting to try eyeballing the architecture in those ruins.”

“If we ever get there,” I remarked, taking a small swig from my canteen. They were considerably farther away than they’d looked from the TARDIS. We trudged on in silence for a while. I was sweating, dusty, scratched up, and happier than I’d been in years. Three years, to be precise. It was good to once again be following that leather-jacketed form and not only for the aesthetic qualities of the rear view or his helpfulness in breaking a path. (How can he manage to wear that jacket in such heat? I know his internal body temperature is less than a human’s, but shouldn’t that mean he is even harder pressed to keep cool enough for all his cells to work? Time Lord physiology remains mysterious. Probably he’s just too stubborn to take it off.)

Eventually we reached the ruins. They were built of the same red rock that formed the natural pillars, but carved into regular blocks and polished smooth. Crumbled foundations spotted the landscape as far ahead as I could see with the occasional still-standing wall mixed in, but we went straight to the largest and most intact building. It was built of a darker shade of red than the surroundings, almost like dried blood. It looked like a temple but with all the spirituality of Soviet public housing. Its peaked roof reached towards the empty sky. The long sides’ walls bulged out below rows of small windows. The shorter side closest to us had stairs leading up to a porch where giant columns thicker than the two of us together could have wrapped our arms even halfway around held up an overhang. Behind the columns lay the building’s entrance, a massive pair of square doors carved out of black, shiny stone, possibly obsidian. Between the color scheme, the superhuman scale, and the sparse ornamentation, the whole assemblage was about as welcoming as a cactus is cuddly. In fact, it had a downright menacing aura. Of course the Doctor strode right up to the doors.

“Any ideas where we are yet?” I asked, mostly to break the oppressive silence of the ruins.

“None,” he said, but there was an edge to his voice that made me suspect that the actual answer was ‘none I like.’ That only ensured that we were going to have to enter, since the odor of trouble attracted the Doctor like the odor of rotting meat attracted flies. He tugged on a ring mounted on one of the doors. I went to give him a hand. Surprisingly enough, the door opened a crack with fairly minimal screeching and dragging considering its age and weight.

“Pretty easy to get in, “ I remarked, brushing my hair out of my face. The Doctor glanced at me, somehow managing to frown and look impressed at the same time. I hoped the frown was directed at the ruins and the impressed aspect directed at me, although with this universe’s Doctor I couldn’t quite be sure.

“A little too easy,” he said. Probably frowning at the ruins after all. “Something’s wrong here.”

“Are you talking about the door, the ugly architecture, or the fact that it’s the only building still standing in a ruined city?” I asked. The hairs on the back of my neck were starting to prickle despite the heat.

“I’m going with yes. Let’s start with the ruins. This building is a little worn around the edges, a few holes in the roof, but it’s miles better off than anything in sight. Why?” He was pacing now, in full detective mode. I loved watching him work.

“It’s built of a different stone. Maybe it’s just tougher?”

“Good thought, but look over there.” He stood beside me and pointed to a set of crumbling deep-red walls, then a separate wall the same color. “There were a few other buildings in this material, but only this one still stands. Why maintain only this building while the rest of the city decayed? Or why destroy the city but leave this standing?” I looked out at the sand and vanished city. You could make out the foundations of buildings except right near the remaining building, where there were just heaps of rubble, as if the crumbling walls had been cleared away.

“Or why,” I voiced my disquieting thought, “build just one giant new building in a destroyed city without rebuilding anything else?” The Doctor turned his pacing into a run down the steps so he could wave the sonic screwdriver over the more decrepit ruins, then back up the steps to wave the screwdriver at the building. I stayed standing near the door, which might be creepy but was emitting a cool draft.

“This building _does_ seem to have been built after the rest was already falling down. Even if you’re on the lookout for discount real estate, that’s a bit extreme.” His expression of worry had deepened. He stalked towards the door. “I don’t think we’re going to learn anything more out here.”

I followed the Doctor inside, shivering slightly as I entered the dim interior. The strangely empty hall was far too large for the small windows high overhead to illuminate properly. The color scheme matched the outside: deep red walls and floor with black pillars. Enormous iron chandeliers with burnt-out candle stubs cast spidery shadows. Most were near the distant ceiling, but one chandelier had ripped its hangings partway out of the ceiling and now dangled crookedly not far overhead. The walls to my left and right were broken by numerous openings into darkness, presumably unlit side rooms. A thick coat of dust covered the stone floor, mixed in with shards of glass from the broken windows and droppings, perhaps from some birds taking advantage of those windows. At the far end of the hall, nearly the length of a football pitch away, there was a hefty stone slab, perhaps an altar or table. High above that altar, the opposite wall was decorated with black tiles set into the red stone, forming angular alien script. Thanks to the TARDIS, I could read it: _Entropy is order. _ Huh?

The Doctor gazed towards that wall, hands clenched into fists at his sides. He was utterly still. When I moved to stand beside him, the stricken expression he bore was far more frightening than the brooding ruins. His wide eyes stared straight through the wall as if at some horror a million miles or a million years away. I reached out to lay my hand on his shoulder, and he jumped wildly at my touch. He whipped around to face me, the haunted look shifting into a particularly grim version of what I privately called his Oncoming Storm Face, all implacable power. One look at the ancient eyes beneath those furrowed brows when he was in this state and I wondered how anyone ever mistook him for human.

“Rose, get out of here!”

“What’s going on?” I hadn’t seen or heard any source of immediate danger, although at his slightly raised voice I thought I heard faint rustling sounds, as if something (or several somethings) stirred in the darkened side rooms. My heartbeat quickened.

“This place is dangerous. It shouldn’t be here, but it is, meaning you need to leave. Now!”

“What about you? You got a plan?”

“I’m staying. You just go!” He jabbed his finger towards the door. His anxiety was contagious, but not so much that I was going to abandon him without knowing what was happening, especially not when he ordered me around like a child.

“If it’s going to kill us right away then you should leave with me. Otherwise, you can bloody well take one minute to tell me what I’m running from!” My voice set off the rustling again, which was almost enough to make me reconsider my choice. The Doctor grabbed by hand and pulled me out of the door and down the steps, but instead of chasing me away he leaned close to my ear.

“Do you know what my people fought in the Time War?” he whispered.

“Daleks?” I whispered back, biting my lip as my eyes flicked towards the temple. This didn’t look like the Daleks’ architectural style, although I only had the insides of their spaceships to go from. Somehow they just didn’t seem like the types to build something so large without obvious purpose.

“They were the worst, the cause of the war, but they were not alone. Daleks scorn other life too much to accept allies, but that didn’t stop some of those others from supporting the Daleks anyway. Most just found the Daleks convenient distraction from their own conquest schemes, but the Ruacmord were different. They _wanted_ the Daleks to exterminate everything, and they did plenty of exterminating of their own. The Ruacmord were not a species of alien but an apocalypse cult with members from dozens of species. When I…when the Time War ended they were destroyed, along with the Daleks and the Time Lords. When I say destroyed, I mean obliterated throughout all of time and space along with everything they built. Exterminated. There shouldn’t be so much as a candy bar wrapper left from them. My people died so nobody would ever have to fear them again, but here we are standing beside what is clearly a Ruacmord temple. If you aren’t frightened enough to leave now, there is something very, very wrong with you.” He was so close I could feel his warm breath puffing against my ear. I shivered.

“That is bad, bad news. I’m still sticking with you. Never said I was entirely right in the head.” I wanted to tell him that I’d faced down Daleks, even their Emperor, and come out alive, so I’d cope with the Daleks’ murderous entourage if I had to. However, reading between the lines of what the Doctor said, it sounded as if this universe had not yet introduced him to any Dalek survivors of the Time War. Perhaps they were really gone here, but I wouldn’t bet on it, and I’m sure he wouldn’t either if he knew I’d met them. The Doctor was quite upset enough without possible Daleks.

“‘Entropy is order.’ That’s the Ruacmond motto. Do you know what that means?” he asked. I got the sense that the subject of why I should leave was not abandoned for good, but I was happy for a temporary respite from justifying my presence. For a moment I missed the camaraderie of my Torchwood coworkers. There, I was a valid part of the team. Well, my Dad had been known to try to keep me out of dangerous situations, but he’d long since figured out that not assigning me a mission I really wanted usually just meant I got involved during my off time without proper backup.

“Entropy…doesn’t that mean chaos?” I reached for my distant memories of physics class, when I’d been far more interested in passing flirty notes to Jimmy Stone than anything the teacher said. “That motto’s some sort of deliberate paradox.”

“Yes and no. Entropy is often thought of as chaos, but a more precise definition is the unavailability of energy in a system to do work. In a closed system, entropy inevitably increases. An ice cube in a sealed warm room melts, leaving room-temperature water. No change in the total energy in the room, but the room has more entropy because–here’s the key–there’s less difference. When the universe winds down, so far in the future even Time Lords can’t be sure, it may be because entropy reaches its maximum and all energy become uselessly homogenized. Life fights against entropy, using energy from light or chemicals to build more complex molecules, creatures, civilizations, and so forth. The Ruacmord look at the diversity and intricacy of living things and they see instability. They hope to bring order to the universe by destroying all life.”

“Sound like charming people you’d love to have over for tea. Do you think they destroyed the city?” I tried to keep my tone flippant despite a feeling of foreboding. Another day, another bone-shaking terror.

“Probably. Every time they need to act against entropy, they make more somewhere else. To build one temple they raze a city. If they want to have a baby the parents commit at least two murders.”

“Do you think any of them are still hiding in there?”

“That’s what I’m going to find out.”

“You seem to be having pronoun problems again, Doctor. That’s what _we’re_ going to find out.”

“Rose,” he said in exasperation, “we’ve been through this. You can’t…”

“Yes I can,” I interrupted him. “Look, I’m good with the TARDIS, but not good enough to get home alone. If you get yourself trapped or killed beyond regenerating, I’m stranded. I don’t fancy becoming a wild woman of the desert when the TARDIS food supplies run out or the water purification system breaks down. Even if you return okay, I could get into all sort of trouble just walking across the desert alone. Have I told you yet about the time your counterpart let me out of his sight for a few minutes and I ended up dangling from a barrage balloon hundreds of feet above London in the middle of a German air raid?” If he wasn’t ready to accept me as a partner, I could play damsel in distress with the best of them.

“What?! How? On second thought, I don’t want to know.”

“Did I mention I was wearing a Union Jack t-shirt at the time?” I batted my eyelashes, and the Doctor put his hand to his forehead and shook his head.

“Fine. Come along where I can keep an eye on you,” he grumbled, stalking up the steps. He stopped and ordered, “Just stay close to me.” I hurried along behind him, but he whipped around again. “And don’t touch anything!” I smiled and grabbed his hand.

“Whatever you say, Doctor.” He gave me an exasperated look, which I probably deserved. OK, definitely deserved, but I was still right.


	2. Traps

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the Doctor violates the first rule of adventure archeology.

Back inside the temple, the Doctor gestured towards the closest side room, whispering, “We need to see what’s in there.” I nodded, my pulse speeding up. We approached slowly. I could hear rustling and scraping from within, whisper-soft but sounding loud in the stillness of the empty temple. The Doctor drew the sonic screwdriver with his free hand. As we drew near, my muscles tensed, ready to flee. The Doctor halted at the threshold and shone the light from the sonic screwdriver into the darkened room.

 

Instantly the air erupted with ear-splitting shrieks and a tumult of flapping wings. Dozens of creatures with wingspans broader than the Doctor was tall and the scaly hide and long beaks of pterodactyls crowded onto shelves and dangled bat-style from the ceiling of the room. There were none on the floor, because that was entirely covered with guano-coated bones. Most of the bones were small like the hopping lizards we’d seen, but some were much larger, and at least one skull seemed to have come from a humanoid. The beaks were full of wicked teeth, and the beasts’ feet carried talons like curved butchers’ knives. I raised my arms defensively, but they didn’t attack. All the flapping seemed to be an attempt to shield their enormous eyes from the dim light of the sonic screwdriver. They cowered farther back into the room, screeching. The Doctor and I retreated.

 

“We should be safe enough from those fellows as long as we stay in the main hall, but let’s not be here after dark,” he suggested. I agreed emphatically as the racket gradually died down. We carefully inspected all the other side rooms but found more of the same: nocturnal flying creatures and their piles of bones. If there were any artifacts we couldn’t see them for all the wings and mess, unless you counted the shredded fragments of clothing on a few skeletons.

 

“There must be a hundred of those things here, and none of them look friendly. Do you know what they are?” I asked.

 

“Pets of the Ruacmord,” the Doctor replied. “released on almost every planet they visited. They called them curfew enforcers for their habit of devouring anyone within reach after sundown. Can’t stand light, but deadly in the dark. The Ruacmord used them to put the terror back in the nighttime, bring a civilization a step back towards primitives huddled in caves. This lot have probably gone feral.” I nodded, mostly just glad we hadn’t seen anything interesting enough in the rooms to make him decide that we needed to chase the ptero-thingies out for a closer look. All we had left to explore was the front of the temple near the altar table. Now that we were closer, I could see some sort of shiny object sitting on the table. At last, a clue! I started to walk towards it, but the Doctor, a pace or two behind me, abruptly cried out in warning:

 

“Not another step!”

 

I froze with one foot in the air and looked down, expecting to see a huge snake or something of the sort. All I saw was more floor.

 

“Any particular reason why I’m stopping?” I gave the Doctor an irritated look, but stayed balanced on one foot.

 

“You’re about to step on a trap door. That a good enough reason for you?” he snapped, hurrying up behind me. I looked more closely at the floor, and my breath caught in my throat. The square of stone at my feet had a distinct gap between it and the surrounding tiles. One edge bore two gentle bumps: hinges. Very slowly and carefully, I put my foot down behind me and backed away.

 

“Thanks,” I told him. He gave me the Why Do I Put Up With Stupid Apes look.

 

“It’s clear you’ve never raided an abandoned temple of death before. The Ruacmord loved their booby traps as much as any cult.”

 

“Hey, I nearly got ritually sacrificed by the Aztecs in fully functional temples, twice actually–or was one of those the Maya? Plus, I’ve watched all the Indiana Jones movies. That gives me some archaeology adventure credit, but it doesn’t make me magically attuned to cracks in the floor.”

 

“Indy’s making movies? Good for him. I always told him he had too much charisma for the classroom.” The Doctor knelt down beside the trap door to examine it while I frowned at him. I was used to anecdotes about famous historical people (like his pal Cleo), but film characters? He _had_ to be mocking me. How gullible did he think I was? I decided not to encourage him by responding. The Doctor knocked carefully on the trapdoor with a fist, earning a hollow-sounding thunk, then pried at its edges with his fingers.

 

“With the hinges on this side, I’m guessing it opens upwards, but it’s too heavy to open by hand,” he said, taking out the sonic screwdriver and running it along the hinges. “It might be meant to let something out, and I doubt it’s anything we want to meet. All sealed tight for now so we don’t get any surprises.”

 

“So if it opens towards us, does that mean I wouldn’t actually have fallen through if I’d stepped on it?”

 

He tossed me a quick glare. “That’s not the point.”

 

Now watching where I stepped very carefully, I noticed a line of finger-width tiles running from the trap door to the side wall, out of place among the huge slabs making most of the floor. I called the Doctor to take a look. Soon he had yanked up a small tile from the edge where it met the trap door, revealing a thick rope running through a groove and down below the trap door. Beside the wall, the rope emerged from a hole in the floor. It ran up the wall and stretched overhead to disappear into the ceiling directly over the trap door.

 

“Looks like whatever triggers the trap activates machinery in the ceiling. It tightens the rope, these tiles get pulled up, and the trap door gets pulled open,” he reasoned. That puzzle somewhat explained, his attention switched to the object on the altar table. His frown grew deeper, and he beckoned me along.

 

We tried to keep a watch out for more potential booby traps. As we got close enough to make the object out clearly, however, I could have stepped right over a pit of cobras without really noticing, and I think the Doctor was at least as distracted by the thing on the table. Goosebumps rose on my arms as the sense of trepidation I’d felt upon first entering the temple returned and brought friends. We stopped within arm’s reach of the table. My hand instinctively reached out for the Doctor’s, and he took it.

 

“Is that…” my question trailed off.

 

The object was a rectangular box sitting on its small end, about the size of a liter bottle. It was made predominately of polished white stone with gold lining the edges. The white stone was slightly grooved, as if to resemble wood planking. A silver panel took up almost half of the side facing us. The bottom edge of the silver had a small half-circle taken out of it, with a slightly inset piece of black stone making the half-circle resemble an opening. Directly above the silver panel were letters formed by lines of tiny rubies outlined with diamonds. The letters spelled “TICKETS.”

 

“Yes,” the Doctor said evenly, “it’s the TARDIS.”

 

The TARDIS. Here, on a planet the Doctor didn’t recognize, in a temple of his enemies that shouldn’t even exist, was about the last place you’d expect to find an elegant miniature TARDIS. It glimmered. It would have been beautiful even without the mystery; with it, the tiny ticket booth was hypnotic. It drew me closer like a will-o’-the-wisp in a swamp. Beside me, the Doctor stared as if his eyes were chained to the model. As if in a trance, he reached out his free hand. Just before his fingers touched it, my own consciousness snapped back.

 

“Doctor, no!” I cried, an instant too late. He picked up the miniature TARDIS.

 

I heard a _clink_ from the altar table as the button the model had been sitting on popped up. I heard a _clank_ from somewhere below.

 

Then the ground dropped out from under me.

 

I fell, still clutching the Doctor’s hand as he fell beside me. I screamed, which under the circumstances I felt was entirely justified. There were only a few moments of true falling before the wall of the tunnel we fell into came out to meet us, and then we slid. The angle was far too steep and the stone too slick to hope of stopping our descent into darkness. As the tunnel narrowed I slammed up against the wall, jammed beside the Doctor, but he kept sliding. Our hands’ vise grip dragged me after him, tugging me around so I slid head first. We hurtled at dizzying speed, completely blind. The Doctor’s hand was jerked out of mine. An instant later I found out why as the tunnel turned straight down. The space I fell through tightened like a funnel, so as I flailed around I banged and scraped my edges, making me unable to twist out of my belly-flop posture.

 

I crashed down right on top of the Doctor. Limbs jabbed into flesh. My face slammed hard against his shoulder, and I felt warm blood flowing from my nose. A loud _clang_ sounded above us, like two large pieces of metal striking together. We began to rise quickly as the surface underneath the Doctor lifted. My stomach at the abrupt change in momentum. As suddenly as the rise began, it halted with a jolt. At last, all was still.

 

“Ow,” said the Doctor, softly but with great feeling.

 

“I’ll see your ‘ow’ and raise you an ‘oh fuck,’” I muttered, trying to disentangle an arm and convince it to move enough to do something about the nose bleed. “I’ve got bruises places I never even knew I had.”

 

“_You’re_ bruised? You had me to pad your fall.”

 

“Not like you’re terribly cushiony. If your jacket gets bloodstained, it’s your own bony shoulder’s fault.”

 

“I can get blood out of the leather,” he said with the confidence given by advanced alien laundry technology and too much experience using it on blood, but his next remark sounded concerned. “How badly are you hurt?”

 

“The blood’s from my nose. It hurts, but it won’t kill me. Otherwise,” I paused, taking a moment to wiggle all my limbs a bit, finally getting a hand up to pinch off my nose, “lots of ouch, but nothing’s broken, except maybe the nose. You?” I felt him shift slightly under me.

 

“Mostly bruises. I hit the back of my head when I landed, but it takes more than that to get through my thick skull. My right ankle hurts, but I can’t tell how badly it’s injured until I stand up, and I don’t think I’ll test that just yet.” I let my head rest against his chest as an agreement. I ached in an entirely different and much less pleasant way than lying on top of the Doctor might usually have inspired, but his nearness was still comforting. After a few moments the gentle rise and fall of our breathing slowed slightly.

 

“For the record, I’d like to point out that it was you who ended up setting off the booby trap.” I remarked teasingly.

 

“Oi! The trapdoor we fell through was invisible compared to the one you tried to step on.” I could hear a bit of a smile in his voice along with the defensiveness.

 

“If it hadn’t been a trapdoor it would have been a rolling boulder or the whole building collapsing. First rule of adventure archaeology, Doctor: don’t touch the most intriguing object. It’s _always_ a trap.”

 

“In this case, a very specific trap.” His voice had darkened, reminding me that our predicament was potentially far more than some bruises. “That was no ordinary burglar alarm of death. I need my sonic screwdriver so we can shed some light on this.”

 

I tried to roll away to let him access the screwdriver, but I didn’t have enough room to get completely off. I met metal bars on both sides, just a few inches wider than his shoulders. I propped myself up on an elbow while he snaked an arm under me and fumbled in his pockets. At last the cool blue light of the sonic screwdriver showed us our surroundings.

 

We were in an iron cage confining us to an area about the size of a coffin, although the ceiling was fortunately considerably higher, probably enough to stand up. The spaces between the bars of the cage were wide enough to get a limb through but far too small for escape. The feeling of rising after we hit the ground had been no illusion. Ropes drew the cage tight against the ceiling of a stone room. On the floor below, some sort of iron contraption of gears and levers stood beside the dust-free spot where the cage had rested. The room had no door other than the shaft we’d fallen through.

 

The Doctor was not looking for an escape route. Instead, he was inspecting the model TARDIS, now slightly chipped but miraculously still in his hand. How had he hung onto that? I’d barely hung onto my last meal. He turned it over, running his calloused fingers along it. When he examined the bottom he looked up at me, pupils wide in the dim light.

 

“Rose,” he said, so casually I knew something had to be wrong, “back in New Jersey where we met, there was a billboard with some words that made you react strangely, like they meant something beyond the obvious. What was that phrase?”

 

“Bad wolf,” I murmured, feeling as if someone had poured a glass of ice water down my spine.

 

“Thought so,” he said, turning over the model TARDIS so I could see the bottom. I looked, already knowing what I would find carved there.

_Bad Wolf. _


	3. Darkness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the lights go out.

I stared in disbelief at the words on the bottom of the model TARDIS. _Bad wolf _ returns. It sounded like a bad movie. Then again, so does the plot of much of my life.

“What does it mean?” asked the Doctor. I wasn’t sure what to tell him. Daleks were the last thing he needed to hear about, and I couldn’t think of any way to explain my role in Bad Wolf that didn’t make me sound unbearably egotistical (I put graffiti across space and time just to leave myself a note!), totally insane, or like a potential TARDIS-molester. This Doctor would be none too pleased to hear about the part where I broke into the TARDIS in order to directly undermine my Doctor’s attempt to keep me safe. Besides, I hardly understood what had happened myself. Since coming to this universe I’d started to recover flashes of memories from when I’d looked into the heart of the TARDIS, but not enough for a narrative my human mind could comprehend: singing and shining, atoms scattering and breath shuddering into still lungs, pain and an inkling of something precious. The longest, most thorough account I could give would be vague, so I decided I might as well be vague in a succinct and discrete way.

“It’s hard to explain. My first Doctor and I kept seeing it, just those two words, everywhere we went. It turned out to be a message, a sort of link that helped us when we needed it most. After that I never saw it again until I met you, except for once.” Just the thought of Bad Wolf Bay made me feel like a hand was wringing the air out of my lungs. Strange how that memory could pain me so when I had the Doctor right in front of me (or technically below me), but of course the Time Lord with me was not the one I’d said goodbye to on that beach. My pinstriped Doctor was gone. If this Doctor had gotten his way, I wouldn’t be with him either. I sighed and finished, “Here, I have no idea what it means. Someone expected us, but no telling who.”

“Well, I make it my policy to do the unexpected whenever possible, so I propose we be unpredictable and get out of here,” he suggested. I nodded. Then nothing happened for a long moment before he said slightly reluctantly, “That probably means getting up.” Bollocks. The pain from the fall had just started to recede enough and my nosebleed to ease enough for me to begin appreciating his form under mine. Grumbling slightly, I levered myself to my knees, then upright. I could just barely stand up in the cage. When the Doctor made it to his feet, he had to duck his head.

I looked for the door of the cage, the first step in any escape plan. To my distress, I couldn’t find it at first. How did we get in a cage with no door? Another moment of looking revealed my answer: the ceiling. The clang I’d heard after we landed was the cage’s heavy top panel falling into place, perhaps released by the machinery below. Now the cage top pressed against the immobile stone above. My heart sank. The Doctor had clearly come to the same conclusion. He found a catch holding the top in place and sonic screwdrivered it unlocked, but his attempts to push the lid open were having no effect. I joined him, shoving upward as hard as I could. The cage top rattled a bit but had no room to open. We tried using a bit of sideways motion in our shoves. The Doctor fiddled with the screwdriver for a while longer. We tried cramming together at one end of the cage in hopes that our weight would tilt it enough to make some space between cage and ceiling. We tried having the Doctor reach up between the bars and push away from the ceiling while I lifted the lid. Nothing worked. We were trapped.

The Doctor and I shared a glance. The illumination from the sonic screwdriver held at his side left his face mostly in shadow, but I could see the anguish written across his craggy features.

“Rose, I’m so sorry. You shouldn’t be here.”

“And you should?” I asked incredulously. He answered only by looking at his boots. I was caught in an odd triangle of exasperation, pity, and mild hysteria. _ Please stop guilt-tripping yourself, Doctor_, I thought, _I would rather like to panic for a moment, and I can’t do that if you’re not steady enough to catch me. _ With panic not an option, I grabbed his shoulders with both hands and spoke with all the confidence I could summon under the circumstances: “I chose to be here. Well, not HERE here in a cage underground, that would be a stupid choice, but you know what I mean. Here with you. We’ll just take a few minutes to think, and then we’re getting out of this cage. I know it.“

Once upon a time I had utter confidence in the Doctor’s ability to keep me safe. I could stare down armies of Daleks because I knew he would come for me. I might think that I was about to die, but deep down I didn’t really believe that anything could harm me through the armor of his caring. Then came Canary Wharf, when he couldn’t stop me from being sucked into the other dimension. If it hadn’t been for my dad, I’d have ended up in the Void. His failure shook my foundations. It was a crisis of faith of sorts. Over time, I realized that I’d been hopelessly naïve to think that even someone as powerful as the Doctor could protect me from everything. I watched Torchwood colleagues die and was stuck on the slow path with the lingering aftermath of grief and paperwork. Someday, it could be my body coming back in a bag, maybe because I’d screwed up and gotten careless, or maybe just because shit happens. Not every fairy tale has a happy ending. Not even love can conquer all.

I understood all these terrible adult truths now. I knew that unless something changed we would die slow, inglorious, pointless deaths locked up in the dark. It scared me. Yet somehow the Doctor’s presence was like desert rainclouds that, however dark and stormy they might be, can still revive deep dormant roots. As I spoke, senseless hope swelled and blossomed within me, fragile and unstoppable as a flower. My rational mind protested, but this stupid, baseless faith persisted. When I told him that I knew we would escape, it was more than an empty pep talk. I honestly believed that we were doomed, but I also believed just as unshakably that we were not, not yet.

The Doctor looked at me as if wondering just how hard I’d hit my head in the fall. Then, without warning, he laughed. He laughed so hard he shook. It was not a joyful sound. I bit my lip in concern and confusion. Finally he managed enough breath to explain.

“At least this way,” he gasped, “I don’t have to worry…that you’re going to run off…and find a barrage balloon!” I bubbled over into slightly crazy laughter of my own.

“And I don’t have to worry that you’re going to send me away and have adventures without me!” I hooted, and he shook even harder. Our dry, desperate laughter echoed in the barren room. I tried to shift my weight, put my foot through one of the holes in the cage floor, and fell over painfully, but my clumsiness made me laugh even harder. He collapsed beside me onto the floor of the cage. Finally the laughter faded away into silence. There really was no sound down here, not even the wind or the rustle of the ptero-thingies’ wings like upstairs. Finally, the Doctor spoke.

“It looks like we’ll be here a while. I should conserve the power in the sonic screwdriver. It’s got a great power supply, but running continuously will drain it eventually. I want to have enough energy to escape if we find a way, and if not…we’ll want the light more later. We can do without for now.” He did not phrase it as a question, but his eyes asked my permission. My heart fluttered with a primate’s fear of the dark, but I nodded.

“Can those flying things get down here?” I worried.

“I think the trap door closed behind us, and I don’t see any other entrances. If we hear anything suspicious, the light goes back on.”

“Right then. Let’s get comfortable so we can do some serious escape-plotting,” I suggested. I wanted something to lean against, so I tried sitting with my back against the long side, but the narrow space left far too little legroom. Then the Doctor and I sat against opposite each other against either end of the cage. He seemed too far away, and our voices had to be too loud for the sepulchral quiet. At last we settled back to back in the middle of the cage with legs stretched out. I leaned into the strength of his back and felt the pressure returned.

“Ready?” he asked. I could feel his back rumble faintly as he spoke.

“Go for it.” As the faint blue glow gave way to inky blackness, my hand reached back without conscious direction. When my hand found his, the Doctor took it and gave a small, reassuring squeeze.

We talked, trying to think our way out of this cage. First we inventoried everything we had with us (nothing likely to cut through metal, sever ropes, or produce serious leverage. We had no food except for a few sticks of gum in the Doctor’s pocket, and somehow I’d lost the canteen in the fall.) Then we discussed strategies for what to do if any living Ruacmord showed up (unlikely, since the trap could have been set centuries ago, but it seemed best to be prepared). We stood up and did some more pushing at the cage lid and trying to shake various things loose with the sonic screwdriver, meeting no success, then sat back down in the dark again. We traded increasingly unlikely ideas (“do you think we could pick apart the rope with our fingernails?”). Gradually the silences lengthened until the conversation appeared to be dead. The darkness and silence pressed against me, and I felt the flower of my hope begin to wilt.

I tried to focus on the problem, but my mind just kept stomping in frustrated circles. Eventually it began to wander. I remembered being stuck in another basement surrounded by Gelth-animated zombies. There too the Doctor had apologized for the danger I’d chosen, despite his own horror at being about to die in Cardiff of all places. Where was good old Charles Dickens to explode this death trap? (File that under ‘thoughts normal people never have.’)

Thoughts of Cardiff made me remember traveling there in my own age with the Doctor and Jack. I smiled at the memory of the period our dynamic duo increased to a terrific trio. The Doctor had been in such a fantastic mood after our visit to the blitz, his grins almost entirely chasing off his brooding periods. Jack himself had added some welcome spice to life on the TARDIS. I enjoyed having someone who would flirt outright and make me feel beautiful rather than just get possessive like a certain Time Lord, and watching Jack putting moves on the Doctor was just about the most entertaining thing I’d ever seen. In a way, Jack’s almost cartoonish oversexuality made him feel safe. He would try to pick up more or less anything sentient (and some of Jack’s conquests were debatable there), so it was easy to believe that his flirtations with the Doctor and me didn’t mean anything. And if, after a while, I no longer believed his flashy attentions meaningless, I also knew that they did not disrupt the intense, more subtle bond I shared with the Doctor. The brief time the three of us were together might just be the best period of my life. Really, it was no wonder our camaraderie had scandalized Mickey.

Mickey. Rickey, now. If I died here, he’d never know why I disappeared. He’d turn New Jersey upside down looking for a clue and never find it. My mum would never know what happened to me either. Watching the dangers I got into with Torchwood drove her crazy with worry, but she said it was better than when I was with the Doctor because at least she’d know if anything bad happened to me. Now she wouldn’t have that closure. I’d nurtured my relationship with the dad who wasn’t actually mine until we really felt like father and daughter, and now he was going to have to grieve like a parent for me. Would my little brother Daniel even remember my face when he grew up?

My eyes burned. I tried to keep myself together by thinking of something happy, but every good memory turned ashy with the taste of loss. I felt tears cut through the dirt on my cheeks and gave up on fighting them. After all, it wasn’t like the Doctor could see me. However, I suppose I must have made some sort of noise to give myself away.

“What’s wrong?” the Doctor asked gently.

“I didn’t even call them before I left!” I wept.

“Call who?”

“My family. They’ll never know what happened to me. It would have taken two minutes to call them before we left Earth, but I didn’t do it. Now they’re always going to wonder, all because I was too distracted and selfish to make one stupid phone call.” Sobs shook my body.

“Do you have your cell phone with you? I can do a bit of jiggery-poke and…”

“It’s in the TARDIS,” I interrupted him bitterly. “I didn’t bring anything but the water. Anyway, what could I possibly say to them right now?”

The Doctor gave my hand a firm squeeze. I twisted enough to bury my head against the yielding leather of his back. Here in the darkness, his touch felt like the only real thing. After a moment, he spoke again: “Tell me about them.”

So I talked. I told him how my mother could be embarrassing and ridiculous and overprotective (he laughed in a slightly shocked tone at how she’d slapped the other Doctor), but also tough and funny and even understanding. I had to skate around exactly why I’d needed a huge truck, but I could tell him how amazing my mum was to get it for me when she knew I’d use it to risk my life. I talked about Mickey and the way he was always there to pick up the pieces of me, first when Jimmy Stone had dumped me and later when I was trapped a universe away from my Doctor. He might be braver than me, I admitted, because he started with more innate fear of things outside of normal experience, but he’d conquered that fear. He even chose to stay in a foreign universe instead of being forcibly exiled here like me. The enveloping darkness made it easy to confess my guilt about the day I’d nearly destroyed the Earth because I couldn’t bear to let my dad die and the more peculiar guilt I sometimes felt because I let this universe’s Pete Tyler fill a father’s shoes and didn’t grieve much for my real dad anymore. I jabbered for a while about how cute little Daniel was, especially when I’d taught him to say “Raxacoricofallapatorious.” Talking about them calmed me immensely. Eventually I had said enough.

“So that’s my family. Kinda crazy, but they’re good to have around. And now…” I shrugged sadly, knowing he could feel the gesture if not see it.

“Now you might never see them again,” he finished for me.

“That’s not quite it,” I corrected. “Of course I’m sad about not seeing them again, but I’ve made the choice to leave them before. I’ve told them that if my home universe’s Doctor ever found a way to bring me back to his side I would go, even if the crossing was one way. I just always expected to be able to say goodbye. Now for all they know I could have died in my Torchwood work, or I could have hit my head and lost my memory and be wandering homeless on the streets, or I could have been kidnapped and sold to a brothel in Bangkok. I could even have gotten caught in one of those gang shootings the films show happening in America all the time. They’ll never know I met you.”

“Gang fights are a serious danger in America! I got cross in the crossfire once and had to regenerate.”

“Really? A gang fight? That seems so, well, mundane. A Time Lord getting killed by ordinary bullets that weren’t even intended for you.”

“I’m a Time Lord, Rose, not Superman. Bullets don’t bounce off. ” He sounded amused.

“Is that so? Does that mean you don’t have x-ray vision either?” I drawled.

“Hey! That sarcasm is uncalled for,” he huffed. “Anyway, back on topic. If you’d called your family, they’d know you were with me in this universe. If you never came back, they’d _know_ that you were dead or else were willfully not visiting. This way, with you just vanishing, they might think that you had a chance to get back to your other Doctor but the window of opportunity was so short that you couldn’t call. They can imagine you alive and happy in the other universe.” For the Doctor, this was an unusually good insight into human thought at the domestic level, and it was genuinely comforting.

“Thanks. I like that.” It wasn’t much, but the thought that my family had reason for hope, even false hope, helped me. We were quiet for a moment, then the Doctor switched gears unexpectedly.

“You know, this business of ‘the other Doctor’ and ‘your first Doctor’ and all that is awkward. We need a way to distinguish between us,” he mused.

“You could always start going by your real name,” I suggested. “Or you just tell me your original name and we’ll assume that’s his too.”

“I’m just ‘the Doctor,” he said testily. I’d trod on sensitive ground. Time to retreat.

“Sorry, I shouldn’t have suggested that. Forget it. Hmmm…we could call him Mr. Spock!” I offered, the thought making me smile to myself. He would be so hilariously irritated if he ever found out.

“Spock? From _Star Trek_? I think not!” said the Doctor, his voice full of indignation. I bit my lip to stifle a giggle.

“You suggest something then!”

“How about Bob? Short and simple.”

“This is your doppelganger we’re talking about. ‘Bob the Oncoming Storm’ just doesn’t have that ring to it. Can you picture anyone calling _you_ Bob?”

“You have a point there. Scratch Bob.”

“Oh, I don’t know. I’m starting to like it. Maybe he can stay the Doctor and you can be Bob.”

“Shut it!” he ordered, and I could practically hear him roll his eyes.

“All right then,” I said, pausing for effect, “Doctor Bob.”

“I give up! You’re impossible!” he complained, elbowing me in the ribs.

“Ow! Bruises!” I elbowed him back, and he too winced. We laughed a little, then fell back into silence.

* * * * *

After a long silence, I slapped my thigh in delight. “I have an idea!”

“Let’s hear it,” said the Doctor.

“All you have to do is use the sonic screwdriver to resonate the metal of the cage so all the welded spots loosen and we can bust out of here!” I grinned to myself in short-lived pride at my cleverness.

“Why do you say that?” asked the Doctor, sounding perplexed, which was not the reaction I’d hoped for.

“In the other universe, you were trying to resonate concrete to get the metal bars off a window. We ended up being rescued before you could finish, which was good because it was taking too long, but we’ve got plenty of time to get it right now,” I explained.

“Resonate concrete? That makes no sense. It would never work.” His tone suggested a raised eyebrow.

“You seemed to think it would work over there,” I insisted, disappointed.

“Unless your universe’s physics are far more different than I realize, your Doctor was either desperate enough to try even things he knew shouldn’t succeed or he was trying to distract you from the situation.”

“Or distract me from something else. I should’ve known,” I muttered. “Would it have killed him to give an excuse that was physically possible? He might as well have told me the world really would explode. What a berk.”

The Doctor, operating on wise instincts, didn’t respond to my little tirade.

* * * * *

I’ve faced a lot of different ways of dying and most of them are not pretty. Still, I’ve developed a firm preference for the sort of impending death with running, some task to do, and above all lots of adrenaline. I might be terrified, but terror takes a back seat to trying to survive. Even if I’m pretty certain I’m a goner, at least I don’t have to wait long.

This cage was another matter. I had nowhere to run, no enemy to outsmart, nothing to do but wait. My stomach was starting to rumble a bit and my mouth was dry. Neither sensation was painful, but I knew that unless we found a way out they would grow. I would weaken bit by bit. Later, far too much later, I would die. The anticipation was maddening. We weren’t even saving anyone’s lives with our deaths.

Also, even if you’re waiting to die, sitting around in the dark is damn boring. If you’d told me a week ago that I’d see the Doctor again, spend hours in a dark room with him and be _bored_, I would have laughed at you. The universe has a sick sense of humor.

What about the Doctor? Would he regenerate if he died like this? Was there some limit on number of regenerations, or would he be trapped here until the end of this planet, regenerating and slowly starving to death again beside my bones, over and over?

* * * * *

“Rose?”

“Yes, Doctor?”

“What goes thump-thump ARRR thump-thump ARRR?”

“What?!” I responded incredulously, wondering if he’d gone completely mental and what I would do if he had. Improvise a straight jacket by tying his sleeves together?

“A pirate falling down the stairs!” he chirruped.

“Huh?”

“Get it? ARRR! Like a pirate.”

“What’s gotten into you? Should we turn the screwdriver light on for a while?”

He sighed. “I thought it was time for some words of encouragement, but I couldn’t think of anything positive to say about this situation. I thought a joke would at least make you laugh. Clearly, I thought wrong.”

“No, it was nice! Real funny. Just kinda out of the blue,” I reassured him.

“Sorry. Next time I’ll make a pre-joke announcement.”

“Don’t bother. Hey, Doctor, how does a pirate travel through time?”

“How?” he asked dubiously.

“In a tARRRdis!” I growled.

“Hold on. I travel in a TARDIS. Are you calling me a pirate?”

“Aye, matey!”

“Saucy wench,” he muttered. I giggled. He squeezed my hand. I kept my smile for a long time, but eventually the darkness stole it away.

* * * * *

“Doctor, what are you thinking about?” I asked when the gloom started to be overwhelming again. He took a minute to reply, which probably meant that he didn’t want to share what he was really thinking and was trying to think of something more cheerful to say.

“There’s a passage in _The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy_ stating that every organism, in times of great stress, emits a subliminal signal communicating exactly how far it is from its birthplace. I’m thinking that if anyone made a machine to measure that signal, you and I would blow all its circuits,” he mused. I smiled ruefully. If that was the more cheerful edited version of his thoughts, I could understand why he didn’t share the rest.

“I’ll say! It would probably explode with a huge fireball. Or maybe not… can you be distant from a planet that never existed? How would the distance between universes be measured? Maybe all that counts for me is the space between this basement and this universe’s Earth,” I rambled.

“Do you miss your universe?” he said. The touch of plaintiveness in his voice nearly broke my heart. He must be thinking of his home world, but I knew not to ask about that. I had to think for a moment to figure out how to word my tangled feelings.

“Sometimes. Lots of things are better for me here–having a dad, my job. I should be so happy, and most days I am. But there’s all these little differences that drive me crazy. Take Coca-Cola. I think the secret recipe is a bit different here. It doesn’t taste bad, just different, but some days I want a _proper_ Coke and I can’t get one because there isn’t a single can in the whole universe. It’s really annoying and a little bit sad, but I could manage, except it’s not just little things. I had this mate at home called Shareen. One day, I really wanted somebody for a bit of girl talk, so I looked her up in this universe. I knew she wouldn’t recognize me, but I thought maybe if I found some excuse to introduce myself we might become friends. She was dead. She’d followed her earpods right into the Cybermen factory and they cut out her brain. The other Doctor and I were right there, but we didn’t stop them in time for her. And sometimes…sometimes this place looks like home, but I just feel like everything around me is false and wrong, like the whole world’s a movie set that’s just a cheap copy of the real thing. Even the people. I live here, but it will never quite be home.”

“That must be hard,” he sympathized. He knew about loss, more than I prayed I would ever know, perhaps more than humans are capable of knowing. I shrugged.

“I cope,” I said. Then, because it was dark, or because or I was tired, or because we were going to die, I added quietly: “Mostly, I miss him.” The Doctor didn’t need to ask who I meant.

Back to silence.

* * * * *

I would like to say that the Doctor and I used the long hours in a dark, confined space for a good healing dose of what consenting adults the universe over love doing in the dark, getting to know each other in every possible sense. I would like to say that, but it would be a lie. He had never been to Bad Wolf Bay, never heard me say what I said there, never almost said what my brown-eyed Doctor almost said. We just sat there. I felt the movement of his back as he breathed. In and out, in and out, a little while longer.

* * * * *  
“How long have we been down here, Doctor?”

“Nearly twelve hours.”

I wasn’t sure if that felt like a vast underestimate or a vast overestimate. I’d spent much longer than twelve hours locked up with the Doctor before, but never in such darkness without occasional visits by guards to deliver beatings, food, interrogations, and chances to escape. At least the holes in the cage floor here made it relatively easy when I had to pee (that’s another one for the ‘thoughts normal people never have’ folder). Prison toilets designed for species with totally inhuman anatomy are not exactly the highlight of space travel.

Twelve hours. It would take days to die. What would it be like by the end? Would I even remember what the world outside looked like?

* * * * *

The dark and desperation were doing strange things to my brain.

“Hey Doctor? I know this is gross, but if I starve to death first and you need to eat my flesh to stay alive, that’s okay. I’ll understand. Well, I’ll be dead, so I won’t understand anything, but I’m giving you permission now.”

“Rose…” he began, but I interrupted. I knew I sounded hysterical if not worse, but somehow I couldn’t stop myself.

“I mean, I hope we’re going to get out of here and nobody will need to cannibalize anyone else, but I think we need a contingency plan, you know? ”

“But Rose…”

“What I was wondering is, what if you starve to death first? Will you regenerate?”

“I…”

“And if starvation is a death you can’t regenerate from, what would happen if I ate your flesh? Would it be safe? Not that I want to eat you! I don’t. Not at all. Not in a cannibalistic way, I mean. There’s another meaning of that phrase that’s different, and I…” I babbled.

“Rose! We’re not going to starve to death!” the Doctor interrupted loudly. I finally managed to stop my frantic jabbering, which was just as well since I had no idea where that last sentence was going to end up. There was a long pause while I calmed my breathing, hoping he was about to tell me a brilliant way to get out of here before we starved.

“We’ll die of thirst long before then.”

“Oh.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you detected a Firefly reference in that last conversation, you’d be right on target.


	4. Darkness Continued

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Rose needs a nap.

Why does it always have to be basements? Really, when you consider the ratio of times my life has been seriously imperiled in basements and dungeons to the times it’s been imperiled on, say, unspoiled tropical beaches or charming sidewalk cafes in Paris, you start to think that perhaps the universe is not only unfair but actively vindictive.

 

Of course the universe is not really vindictive. If it were, I would have been in some underground cage without a strong back to lean against and a cool hand to clutch in the darkness. I wouldn’t have those precious new memories of the Doctor covered in chocolate. In a truly spiteful universe, I would still be working in a shop on my first Earth, no purpose to my life beyond getting my next serving of chips. The Doctor is worth the basements.

 

You know what I love about the TARDIS? No basements. Not a single cellar, dungeon, crypt, vault, or underground lair. Nice place, the TARDIS. Treehouses are good too.

 

* * * * *

 

My head jerked upwards and my eyelids flew open, not that the latter made any difference. I was in that uncomfortable place where my body demanded sleep but couldn’t seem to reach it. How long had it been since I slept? After meeting the Doctor around midnight New Jersey time at the end of a long day, our trip to Laisha for chocolate and a food fight had taken several hours, and we’d been in this cage at least twelve hours. Whenever my chin dipped towards my chest, I started to slump and awoke as I started to list, just in time to keep myself from sliding painfully against the bars. When I somehow managed to remain sitting up, I would reach the boundary of sleep and suddenly jerk awake at some incoherent worried thought. My brain was too fuzzy to stay awake and too tense to rest.

 

“Trying to sleep?” the Doctor asked softly.

 

“Mostly failing. We’ll have to complain to management about the poor quality of the mattresses here,” I grouched.

 

“I’ll say. Angry letters are in order. Still, maybe we can improvise something. Sit up for a minute.” He switched on the sonic screwdriver light, making me squint against the sudden light. To my surprise, he slipped off his precious leather jacket and folded it up. He scooted away from me and awkwardly turned himself around in the tight space, settling cross-legged with his back against the short wall. He set the folded jacket on his lap. “Here you go. Instant pillow.”

 

He smiled a little bit, not precisely a false smile but not the sort of expression that suggested genuine happiness either. An “I want to smile at you even if I don’t feel like smiling” sort of smile. Here he was, facing a grim end to 900 plus years, undoubtedly still shaken from finding evidence that his sacrifices in the Time War had not obliterated his enemies, and he was sufficiently worried about whether I could sleep comfortably that he took off his jacket. I melted.

 

“Thanks,” I said, inadequately, carefully lying down on my back with my head in his lap. I shifted a little bit, trying to minimize the digging of the bars into my back and his shins into my neck.

 

“Comfortable?” he asked when I was still. I nodded. The leather jacket smell, the smell of him, surrounded me. I studied his face looking down at mine, and for a moment I was falling upwards into the vast blue of his eyes, the cage vanishing around me, the universe opening. Then he looked away and switched off the light.

 

“Goodnight, Rose.”

 

“Is it night out there?”

 

“Does it matter?”

 

I wrinkled my nose. “No, I suppose not. Goodnight, Doctor.”

 

“I’m not going to sleep.”

 

“Goodnight anyway. Doctor, are you gonna be okay while I’m asleep?” I asked, concerned that the loneliness of sitting in complete hopeless darkness without anyone to talk with might be a bit much even for him.

 

“I’m always okay,” he responded. He sounded tired.

 

“Don’t lie to me.”

 

He sighed. “Sorry. How’s this: I promise not to get any less okay while you’re asleep.”

 

“That’ll do.” Cradled here, my tension retreated. I let the exhaustion wrap around me. Barely conscious, I couldn’t stop myself from saying one more thing. “Hey Doctor?”

 

“Yes?”

 

“I’m glad I met you.” Basement and all, it was true. I slept.

 

* * * * *

 

Conflicting sensations confused me as I drifted back towards consciousness. On one hand, large parts of my body were intensely uncomfortable. My mouth was achingly dry. Metal bars dug into my spine. One leg had fallen asleep. Bruises throbbed all over. I really needed to stretch and shift. I didn’t have even one moment of happy sleep-induced forgetfulness of where I was.

 

On the other hand, my head was sending me faint but wonderful signals. I felt the gentlest of pressures against my scalp, the smallest tickle of movement from my hair follicles. Was the Doctor stroking my hair? My God, he was!

 

So startled I nearly forgot to breathe, I caught myself before the Doctor could notice. Such small touches, barely this side of imaginary, were undoubtedly intended to let me sleep through them. If he knew I was awake he would stop, and I wanted him to keep going as long as possible. Forever would do nicely. His long fingers were so tender as they stroked from my scalp to the ends of my hair. I envied a cat’s ability to purr, for no human words could so perfectly articulate how I felt. Not much beats hair-stroking for the ability to induce peace and contentment in spite of surroundings.

 

My body, however, refused to allow me that peace. My numb leg twitched violently, and I flinched. Instantly the hand withdrew from my hair.

 

“Awake, sleepyhead?” he asked casually. I opened my eyes, for all the good that did.

 

“Sort of. How long was I asleep?” My tongue felt awkward in my dry mouth.

 

“Not quite two hours. Just a little nap.”

 

I groaned, stretched, and carefully stood up.

 

“I still feel like I’ve been hit by a train,” I grumbled. “Stupid trap. Why couldn’t they just drop us straight down a little ways instead of making a slip and slide? Or better yet, why not a normal trap like arrows shooting out of the walls or a rolling boulder? Maybe they practice secret apocalypse cult feng shui that told them the cage had to be under this precise part of the temple but the trapdoor belonged over there. Probably they just want us to be bruised before we’re dead. Bunch of wankers.”

 

The Doctor flicked on the screwdriver’s light and sprang to his feet beside me, shrugging the jacket back on. His eyes sparked with sudden intensity.

 

“Sliding…maybe there is a reason. What direction would you say we slid?” he demanded.

 

“Umm…down.” I said, not understanding why he was so agitated.

 

“Of course down, but we also went over. Which way?” He was focused and bursting with contained energy. If there had been room he would have been pacing.

 

“Back towards the entrance, I think.”

 

“We’re in agreement then. Does it mean what I think it means?” he asked rhetorically, pointing the sonic screwdriver up and peering intently at the ceiling. What he saw made him break into a giant grin. “Fantastic! This just might secure my title as the universe’s greatest genius … or possibly the greatest fool for having such a mind and not putting the pieces together fourteen hours ago. The evidence is inconclusive, but I think I’m leaning towards genius. What do you think, Rose? Fool or genius?”

 

“Well, it would be a bit easier to say if I knew what the hell you were talking about!” I said, bemused. The withered hope within me began to bloom again.

 

He held the sonic screwdriver above his head, peering intently at the ceiling. “Do you remember the trap door you nearly stepped on? The one I sealed?”

 

My jaw fell open as I suddenly realized what he meant. I looked at the ceiling, where very close inspection revealed a hairline crack forming a square in the stone.

 

“Oh my God! We locked ourselves in!” I squealed. “The trap door was for this cage to rise out of the floor!”

 

“Brace yourself. We’re going up!”


	5. Upwards

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which departure from the basement does not improve our heroes' situation as much as anticipated.

“Brace yourself. We’re going up!” the Doctor told me, grinning like a mad scientist with a new pet monster.

He tapped the sonic screwdriver. With a massive creak, the ceiling opened. Light dazzled my eyes. The cage shot up, leaving my stomach in the basement. It just kept going up …and up…and up.

The cage finally stopped about twenty feet above the temple floor and swayed gently in midair, suspended by ropes that ran up to the ceiling. I was momentarily confused by the light coming through the windows until I remembered the planet’s slow rotation. That light was now a deep gold late-afternoon color. The dim, threatening temple seemed vividly illuminated and welcoming after the underground imprisonment. Well, almost welcoming.

“Brilliant!” I exclaimed, beaming at the Doctor. He beamed back for an instant, but an expression of worry overtook his face.

“Hold onto that until we’re back in the TARDIS. We’re still in a cage, and now we’re a dangerous distance above the ground.”

“If we can get the lid open, I’ve got down figured. See over there? We’re close enough to that low chandelier to jump to it, and from there the drop isn’t too bad. I used to do gymnastics, so I can make it. Well, I hope I can. Think you’re up for a little ape-like swinging around up high?”

“I’ll hoot like a monkey if I have to, but whatever we do, we need to do quickly. It’s not long until sundown, when the curfew enforcers, our flying friends, come out. The openings in the cage appear to be just wide enough to let their beaks stick in,” he warned.

“So that’s how this thing was supposed to work before you locked us underground! A combination booby trap and birdfeeder. The prisoner is supposed to end up dangling in midair until nightfall. Well, let’s go for it.”

For a moment I was worried that the weight of the cage lid would defeat us even without a ceiling holding it down, but our combined lifting power was a match for it. The lid plummeted to the floor below with a satisfying crash, setting off a fury of flapping and screeching from the side rooms. I froze at the sound, but the light kept them hidden away. At long last, we were free to leave the cage. I raised my hand in the air, palm out. The Doctor gazed at it in puzzlement for a second before understanding dawned and he gave me a high five. I smiled up at him playfully.

“That chandelier’s not big enough for us both to jump to it at the same time. Lead the way, Rose,” he offered. “Show a non-ape how it’s done.” I frowned at him. Something in his stance and tone of voice reminded me of when he was about to do something overprotective. However, I couldn’t figure out how letting me be the first to jump around like a trapeze artist with no net could be overprotective, so I didn’t argue.

“When it’s your turn, I’m not catching you if you fall,” I warned jokingly.

“I caught you when we hit the cage!” he bristled, just as teasingly.

“If by ‘caught’ you mean ‘provided the surface on which I smashed my nose.’” I pointed at the offended body part. He rolled his eyes.

“Just get out of here.”

The Doctor helped boost me to the rim of the cage. Gripping the bars, I was able to scramble down until I clung to the underside of the cage. I took a second to smile up through the bars at him.

“You’re sure you can do this?” he worried, as if there were some alternative.

“Sort of, yeah,” I said with a wink. Somewhere between my exhilaration at getting out of the basement and my focus on getting away before darkness I was able to minimize the nervousness that this frankly rather crazy little stunt would normally have provoked.

I began swinging my legs, trying to work enough power to make it to the chandelier. Really, it was just like the uneven bars in a gymnastics competition, if they were many times farther apart than normal. And if the lower bar branched and twisted so much it was hard to pick a spot to aim for. And suspended a dangerous distance above a stone floor. And the only judges were carnivorous flying reptiles that would eat me if I didn’t make it. So, really, not like the uneven bars at all. Nevertheless, I focused on a branch of the chandelier to target, put a last bit of oomph in my swing, and let go. For a moment I was unanchored, flying and falling. Midair moments used to be my favorite part of gymnastics. They filled me with a sense of freedom and danger–rather like travel with the Doctor, in fact. The floor was approaching worrisomely fast. Then my hands hit the chandelier hard enough that I nearly couldn’t get a grip, but somehow my fingers curled around the iron bar. My body jerked against my arms and the chandelier started to swing, but I held on.

“See, Doctor? Easy!” I said, hanging from the chandelier. In retrospect, saying that phrase before properly finishing was almost as bad as “What could possibly go wrong?”

I heard a groaning noise overhead and looked up. The chandelier’s damaged grip on the ceiling gave way entirely. It fell. An instant before it hit the ground I pushed away, avoiding being crushed by the massive metal object by at least two inches. I picked myself off the ground, even more bruised than before but otherwise fine.

I looked up to where I expected the Doctor to be, but somehow the cage had moved. It had risen nearly to the ceiling of the chapel.

“What’re you doing up there?” I bellowed.

“The cage started to rise as soon as you jumped. I think the machinery in the ceiling was only meant for one prisoner. Without your weight, it had enough power to lift me up here.” His voice carried well in the empty temple, but he was so high above my head.

“The bloody Ruacmord trap thinks I’m fat!” I muttered under my breath, then, loudly, “Any ideas for how we’re getting you down from there?”

“There’s nothing within jumping range. Even if you hadn’t dragged down that chandelier it would have been too far down. I’m stuck.” The tone of grim resignation in his voice was almost as bad news as his words.

“What about just jumping straight down? Can your fancy Time Lord body handle that?” I asked, just in case.

“Remember: Time Lord, not Superman. My body would break. Regeneration’s never fun, and more importantly sometimes I’m not much use for hours afterwards. I might not be able to make it back to the TARDIS before the curfew enforcers came out. If I survived without regenerating I’d be badly injured, too badly to walk. I’d break my legs at least, more likely my back. Once again, I’m a meal.”

“Right. That means I’ve got to get you. “ I chewed on my lower lip as I pondered my options. If I could get the chain off the fallen chandelier, I could throw it up to him, except that he was nearly at the top of the room and the chandeliers stopped far short of the floor. The chain wouldn’t be long enough. Maybe I could shimmy up a column and see if I could get into the ceiling to make the machinery let him down? No, those columns were far too smooth for shimmying. Could I build a tower up to him with rubble from outside? Maybe, but it would take a long time.

“No. You’ve got to go back to the TARDIS,” he interrupted my thoughts.

“Right! There’s loads of ropes and climbing equipment in storage! I’ll be right back for you,” I said, pivoting to go. My entire being was a lens focused on how to defeat the trap for good.

“That’s not what I meant. You can’t come back. Remember how far we parked? You barely have enough time to make it to the TARDIS before sundown. If you try to return here they’ll devour you.” I couldn’t see his face from this far below, but his voice was utterly bleak.

“There must be some way to get you down, a hidden button to lower the cage or something like that. They wouldn’t build a trap they couldn’t reset,” I said, ignoring his orders to leave. I started to pace rapidly around the room, searching.

“You need to leave now!” he insisted.

“You’ll die!” I shouted, my voice cracking just a little. “There’s no regenerating when your body is in a hundred different stomachs.”

“Forget me. Just get out of here!” he shouted louder.

“I’m not leaving you!”

“Go, damn you! I’m NOT watching you DIE!” he bellowed. Almost any being in the universe would have trembled in the face of his intensity, and I wasn’t immune.

“THEN CLOSE YOUR EYES!” I screamed back, trembling, terrified, heart-worn, and immensely stubborn.

My words echoed around the temple. In their chambers, the creatures rustled and barked. The light was noticeably dimmer than when we’d first emerged from the basement. After a moment the Doctor spoke, barely loud enough for me to hear: “Please. Please go.”

I wasted a precious moment frozen with indecision. I doubted I could do anything more here, but he’d been truthful about how close we were to sunset. I had three choices: die here with him, die apart in a vain attempt to come the rescue, or take refuge and live out my days stranded on a strange planet in a strange universe, not a friend or a flush toilet to be found anywhere under the indifferent sky. How could I choose? Memories flashed before my eyes: straining at my harness on a shuttle heading away from a black hole, taking me away from my Doctor forever. Hands clasping in a department store basement. A triple-sun dawn over a mountain range literally made of gold. A beach beside an ocean frozen in mid-storm. A beach washed by cold seawater and hot tears. A hand trailing through my hair in the dark. Chocolate on his face in the moonlight. A black-tie concert of whale song on a moonlit sea a hundred lightyears from earth. A grinning, gel-haired Doctor promising to take me to see Elvis on his motorcycle.

Motorcycle!

“Doctor, in the other universe you had a motorcycle in the TARDIS. If I had transportation, I might be able to get back here with rescue equipment in time. Do you have a motorcycle here?” I spoke quickly, trying not to waste time, trying not to let my voice shake. For a small but terrifying moment, the Doctor made no reply. My heart leapt into my throat.

“Oh, I can do better than that!” I could hear the proud smile in his voice. “I’ve got a fortieth century aerocycle! It _flies_.” I whooped with joy.

“Where is it? What’s it look like? Will I be able to fly it?” I asked.

“Ask the TARDIS when you get there. She’ll show you. The controls are fairly instinctual.”

“Got it.”

“Bring torches, big bright ones!”

“I’ll take care of it. You just stay alive until I get back!” I ordered. I began to run for the door. Even with an aerocycle, there wouldn’t be much time.

“Rose! I…” he called after me.

“Tell me when I come back for you!” I cried over my shoulder. I slipped out the door and danced down the steps. The desert stretched out before me.

I ran.


	6. The Doctor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the Doctor is alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is perhaps an overly ambitious concept for a chapter, but it demanded to be written until I gave in. Hopefully I have carried it off adequately.

I am thinking about Rose Tyler.

Actually, I am thinking about a lot of things, all at the same time. Humans do this too (it’s why they sometimes come up with a solution to one problem while concentrating on something completely different), but at any instant they’re usually only aware of one or two trains of thought. As a Time Lord, I am conscious of more of these thoughts, though not by any means all of them. I may know all the trains of thought running down my tracks, but I also have cars, stagecoaches, backpackers, dogsleds, rockets, and TARDISes of thought running willy-nilly through the landscape of my brain.

I am feeling the turn of the planet falling through space underneath me, looking at the angle of the light coming through the small windows, and calculating how long I have until the temple falls into darkness. (_Rose’s voice in the black basement._)

I am pondering the temple, wondering who built it if not Ruacmord. No likely culprits come to mind. I am forcing myself to recall the end of the Time War in the greatest detail I can manage, trying to find a way a temple or its builders could have escaped that holocaust. I wonder how I can possibly bear to face them again. (_Rose in the restaurant, meeting an unexpected hostile acquaintance with calm reason and thrown food._)

I am reciting two hundred places of pi to myself. It’s not that I don’t know more, but after two hundred I switch to reciting e. It’s a calming exercise. It’s not working well. (_Rose falling asleep in my lap._)

The song stuck in my head is the mad fiddle tune played by Nero as Rome burned. It’s devilishly catchy. (_She probably listens to some insipid pop music. I like having full control of the TARDIS sound system. I have silence if I want it, or I can sing along to drinking songs from the Crab Nebula and not have the embarrassing task of explaining the lyrics to someone whose species has only two sexes._)

I am thinking of Gallifrey burning, wishing all I’d been doing at the time was fiddling, wishing that the burning had been the climax of the trouble rather than a prelude to the real destruction. (_Rose’s small fingers wrapping around mine._)

I am planning exactly how I can fix that blown circuit when I get back to the TARDIS and thinking back to the less urgent maintenance projects I was in the middle of when Rose strode into my TARDIS, my life, and my mind.

Mostly, I think of Rose. I imagine her running across the desert, her hair trailing behind her. Deserts on hundreds of worlds share a tendency towards dangerous wildlife: snakes, scorpions, spiders, and hundreds of creatures without Earthly analogs. Rose is alone with them, probably not paying much attention to where she is going. She could die out there, and even if she makes it to the TARDIS there’s no guarantee she’ll have enough time to make it back here before the curfew enforcers come out. Hopefully she’ll have enough sense to stay in the TARDIS if she runs late. I have too many screams of the dying echoing around my skull. I don’t want hers added to the collection in my last few moments.

And yet…in my cynical old age I hardly believe in anything or anyone but the TARDIS (sometimes not even myself), but somehow, I believe this woman (hardly more than a girl) when she says she’s coming back for me.

I just met her, but I trust her. That worries me almost as much as the way she trusts me. The certainty in her voice when she said she knew I’d get us out of the basement…she doesn’t even know me! She thinks she does, but humans always have trouble with the subtle ways of parallel universes. Maybe the Doctor she knew deserved that devotion, but it doesn’t follow that I do. (Yet the Time War happened even there, just as destructive).

The curfew enforcers are moving around in their rooms. I hear the hiss of leathery wings sliding past each other. They squawk at each other over small territorial disputes. Beautiful animals, really. Their marvelous eyes are so sensitive that they can see clearly on a moonless night even if most of the stars are clouded over. They might be beautiful, but their feeding habits are rather brutal. Being ripped into bite-size chunks is not my preferred way to go. Then again, it could be worse.

For years, one dark corner of my brain has constantly devoted itself to pondering ways to die once and for all. Aim a spaceship at a sun and incinerate myself. Take the TARDIS into the vortex, disable all the safety controls, and step out the door. Overdose on aspirin. I will never act on these notions. I might game with the Reaper and flirt with the black-clad girl with endless eyes, but I will not take her hand until she stretches it out to me. As the last Time Lord, I must not squander my unique abilities. How many lives have I saved across the universe? Even I can’t really conceive of that number. As long as I live, I will save more. (Yet so many are dead because of me, and not only the ones who might deserve it.) Now, with signs that the Ruacmord survive, I am needed to stop them. My duty is to live. If I do that living a little closer to the edge than necessary, who can blame me? (_Rose, lonely exile that she is, seems to have her burning human devotion to life intact, but she does not shrink from death either._)

To die would be a great adventure, so they say. All I’ve experienced of this last (perhaps greatest) adventure is the theme-park facsimile known as regeneration. My life is one dangerous escapade after another, but too much experience has robbed it of all the thrill. I feel that I’ve lived every adventure but the final one. Then again, I would have said that same thing yesterday, shortly before Rose started my first ever food fight. What other adventures have I not even conceived? Rose is so young, so many adventures before her. With me dead, she’ll be stuck in this lonely desert forever. If she does not rescue me by nightfall, perhaps I should jump, hoping that my regeneration from hitting the ground will leave me fit enough to run for the TARDIS. Unlikely, but possible. I need to live for her.

My living has not exactly done much good for those who traveled with me in this incarnation. I remember their smiles, the spark each of them had that made me ask them along. They’re gone now. Rose has that spark in spades. She’s brave, clever, funny, and compassionate. In a more innocent time I would have taken her aboard in a heartbeat, but I am sick of loss. I need to keep myself lonely as Medusa. It’s best for them. It’s best for me. I can go about my business much more efficiently without the constant need for explanations and rescues that humans and most other species typically require. I’ve grown comfortable in my solitary habits.

She wears too much makeup. Centuries of experience have forced me to accept that some people, generally young females, spend outlandish amounts of time applying pigments to their faces, but she lays it on far too thick. She confesses to being a trouble magnet, a liability in the life I lead. I attract enough trouble to go around. She argues with me. She clings. She either doesn’t notice or deliberately ignores the boundaries that most of my companions seem to sense instinctively. (Honestly, what _was_ my alternate up to with her? And sweet Rassilon, why am I jealous?) Since I met her I’ve been forced to remember all sorts of things I’d rather forget.

The level of connection I already feel with her is bound to cause problems. Caring too much endangers both of us, body and spirit. She is human and therefore ephemeral. A sequoia should not get attached to mayflies. Even if I were only the apparent human age of this body I would be old enough to be her father.

I know she is hiding things from me. Her stories were usually overstuffed with detail, but on a few she was strangely vague about what exactly was menacing them. She did not seem very surprised that the Ruacmord appeared to have survived when they should have been utterly obliterated. I think something other than my alternate survived the Time War in her universe, and she has faced it. The thought makes me tired. If something survived in one universe, there is every chance the Time War failed here too, meaning that the temple is really Ruacmord. Who knows what else lurks out in the black? I sacrificed so much, but somehow it wasn’t enough.

Every moment that I breathe, waking or sleeping, part of my brain sends out a tiny ping. I can’t stop it. The ping searches for other Time Lords like telepathic sonar. No signal ever returns.

I am alone. I am empty. It is only just. Yet now I find empty spaces filling up with images of Rose Tyler in the faint blue light of the sonic screwdriver, blood caking her face, hair wild, fear and determination in her wide dark eyes, beautiful. This is not something I want, certainly not something I deserve, but here it is anyway. She smiles and sparkles, but loneliness howls within her. My own howls an answer in spite of my conscious will. With her head in my lap I couldn’t help feeling the sharpness of her nightmares against my mind, though I did not pry to see their content. How could I not reach out to soothe her? Just physical touch was enough. My fingers stayed in her hair long after her dreams quieted–I couldn’t resist the peace that touch passed to me. Right or wrong, I am weary of solitude.

I called to her as she ran out the door. I was trying to say: “Rose! I’m glad I met you.”

My cage hangs in the light, but parts of the temple are now in deep shadow. The rustling wings and clicking claws are louder. I shine a beam from the screwdriver towards the floor, revealing many of the creatures out of their rooms, hopping on the floor and flying in low circles. They scatter from my light, but not for long. The sunlight from the west windows loses some of its crimson intensity and begins to grey and dim. The east-facing windows show sky of deepest indigo. Not long now.

The planet spins. Gallifrey burns. Nero fiddles. Dark wings swirl closer. An impossible temple looms against the dusk sky. Somewhere out there, Rose Tyler runs. I think of her.


	7. Flying

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Rose takes to the air.

My feet beat against the sand. Each labored breath tore at my dry throat. The stitch in my side felt as if somebody had actually taken a giant needle and sewn my muscles together too tightly. I was keenly aware of at least four blisters forming on my feet. I told myself over and over that none of that mattered. Occasionally my body insisted on listening to the pain. I’d drop to a brisk walk for twenty or thirty paces, just enough to catch that extra smidgen of oxygen that would make it possible to keep going. Then it was back to running.

I sped across the rugged landscape. Thorny plants ripped at my flesh as I passed, but I only really minded if they tangled so badly in my clothes that I had to slow down to yank myself loose. I thundered down into dry creek beds and scrambled up the other side. Walking the opposite direction that morning, I would never have guessed that anyone could move half so fast through this natural obstacle course, but the Doctor’s life was at stake. “Impossible” was just another word I didn’t have the spare breath to say.

The towering rock pillars glowed like fire in the light of the low sun. Vividly colored cloud wisps streaked and spotted the vast dome of the sky. It was a scene that belonged on a postcard: “Dear Mum: Check out the gorgeous desert I’m visiting with the Doctor! We visited a historic temple–v. impressive! Got to go run for my life now. Wish you were here. Hugs, Rose.”

Suddenly my ankle twisted and collapsed under me as I tried to descend into a gully. I tumbled to the bottom. I felt the burning of skinned knees under my jeans, but otherwise I’d somehow managed to avoid injury. As I dragged my aching legs back under my body and stood, I vowed to slow down just a little bit. The dimming light made it harder to make out my footing, and a broken ankle meant death for the Doctor. I set off at a more measured pace, but the darkening eastern sky soon had my legs back to their desperate racing.

If it had been the same temperature as when I crossed the desert the first time, I doubt I could have made it. The air had grown considerably less furnace-like with the approach of evening, and the sun did not burn into my neck. Nevertheless, I desperately needed water. The basement had been cooler than the outdoors, but the air still had been desert dry. Those many hours without a drop were catching up with me. My tongue felt huge and clumsy, my lips were cracked, and even my eyeballs hurt from dryness.

There! At last, the TARDIS. Somehow my tired legs picked up the pace as I drew the key’s chain over my head. I skidded to a stop and slid the key into the lock. Stumbling across the threshold, I croaked as clearly as I could:

“Aerocycle! Water! Torches! He’s in danger!” The TARDIS’s hum rose in pitch. I bounded across the control room and into the corridors. The second storeroom on the left was open and lit invitingly. I followed a trail of lights on the floor to a shelf bearing the torches and water bottles plus a shoulder bag to hold them all. I spared a few seconds to pour half a bottle down my throat. How had I never noticed just how glorious water tasted? I swept everything into the bag and followed the lights to back of the room, where the aerocycle waited on a wall rack.

I had pictured the aerocycle as basically an ordinary motorcycle that flew, rather like Hagrid’s in the Harry Potter books. It turned out that I’d picked the wrong Harry Potter imagery, because the aerocycle looked oddly like a futuristic broomstick.

It was basically a long metal pole widening at one end into a cluster of darker-colored tubules like broom straws. The main pole was fortunately wider than an actual broomstick, but the padded and flattened top edge was about the width of a bicycle seat. There was nothing to hold on to but the main pole and no safety belt.

“You have got to be kidding me,” I said aloud. “People fly on that?” In response, the TARDIS hummed louder. She sounded anxious. I shrugged. The Doctor said this was what I needed, so I wasn’t going to argue. I reached out to touch the aerocycle. At the brush of my fingertips, the tubules on the “sweeping” end began to glow faintly green and buzz. It lifted off the rack. I tugged it until it levitated by my waist. I pulled it beside me as I left the TARDIS.

“Thanks, girl,” I called over my shoulder. The sun was dipping below the horizon. I needed to learn to fly fast.

I swung my leg over the aerocyle and sat. Thin metallic tendrils dropped from it and wrapped around my feet despite my flinching away. They drew upwards until my knees were moderately bent, forming stirrups of a sort. OK. I was sitting on a levitating stick. Now what? Experimentally, I wrapped my hands around the pole in front of me and slid them forward. The aerocycle moved forward, rather faster than I’d intended and aiming for a large rock. I hastily slid my hands back towards myself, and luckily this made me slow and stop before I went splat. I soon discovered that the aerocycle turned left or right if I tugged in the appropriate direction, moved straight up or down if I pulled or pushed with my hands close to my body, and angled up or dove if I had my hands farther forward. It also responded to the way I leaned. Luckily, the seat clung to my pants like Velcro, keeping me from sliding around too much. That was all I needed to know and all the time I had to spare, maybe more. Rising above the rocks, I asked the aerocycle for speed.

It shot forward, fast as a car on the expressway. The desert zoomed past below me. Wind whistled in my ears and played roughly with my hair. I was vaguely aware that flying like this should have been exhilarating or possibly terrifying, but all I could concentrate on was the colors fading from the sky. Inside, the light would go more quickly. I bit my lip, terrified that I would arrive at the temple only to find a bloody corpse. Faster, faster.

Since I got stuck in this universe I’ve had to learn to be the hero, the leader, and the one who figures things out rather than the damsel in distress, the sidekick, and the one who mostly just asks leading questions. Not that I was ever entirely or even primarily those passive roles with the Doctor, but it’s different without him. The safety net is gone. At Torchwood, “what would the Doctor do?” was practically my mantra. Here the answer was obvious: if he’d jumped first and I’d stayed in the cage, he’d have gotten me the hell out of there, whatever it took. So I leaned low over the aerocycle to minimize my wind resistance and forced a little more speed. The engine’s buzz was more of a roar and the aerocycle started shaking in a disconcerting manner, but I didn’t dare slow down. Every second of the trip felt like a year.

At last, beneath the first star of the night, I saw the temple’s silhouette. I grinned wildly. Suddenly, a screech rang out. Huge dark wings appeared out of the gloom directly ahead of me. I sent the aerocycle into a steep dive. Claws clicked together inches above my head and the creature stooped after me. I fumbled in my bag until I found a torch. When I aimed the light at the creature it screeched and wheeled away, but I doubted it would go far.

I hurtled towards the temple. The broken windows at the top swarmed with emerging creatures, so I aimed for the crack of the open door. My throat constricted as I thought of the Doctor, surely under attack by now. Another creature flew at me, but I punched it with the torch as it tried to sink its teeth into me. There was the door. I threaded my way through the opening with all the speed I could handle, feeling very much the action movie fighter pilot (well, in an action movie the door would have been closing inches behind me, but close enough).

I shone my torch into the tarry blackness of the temple. The air was thick with reptilian wings, but there, in the cage at the center of the fluttering mob, the Doctor was still standing. He fended them off with the light of the sonic screwdriver, but they were emboldened by the night and did not retreat far. Everywhere but where the screwdriver pointed they crowded the cage, mouths gaping. Blood ran down his face and his jumper was torn and dark with blood. As I watched, a creature stuck its bill up through the bottom of the cage and tried to rip apart his boot. He stomped down hard on its head, but another one was taking advantage of his distraction to dive towards the back of his neck.

That was the tableaux I saw in the few instants between when my torch beam shone towards them and when the creatures scattered from the illumination.

“Rose!” he shouted, giving a dorky little wave that turned into a punch at an attacking creature.

“Doctor!” I said gleefully, waving my torch around as I tried to clear a path towards him. The flock parted before me, but I was too focused on the Doctor to notice the creature coming up from below me until it had sunk its teeth into my calf. I kicked it away, but blood ran down my leg and began to soak into my sock.

I guided the aerocycle with my body so I could have both hands free to defend myself as I pulled up beside the Doctor. He had already scrambled up to stand on the upper rim of the cage, gripping one of the suspending ropes for balance, model TARDIS tucked under his arm.

“Shall I climb on behind you?” he asked.

“Unless this cycle has an invisible sidecar,” I replied sarcastically. “Just hurry!”

He smoothly climbed aboard, wrapping an arm around my waist. “I meant that I could have ridden in front where I could do the driving. I don’t do sidecars.”

“Figures. You’re not the sidecar type. Anyway, you’re always designated driver on the TARDIS. Just this once I steer. Your job is to get the other torch out of my bag and keep the toothy ‘dactyls away.” This whole conversation was carried out while I waved my torch around like a conductor’s baton, trying to keep us from getting further mangled as he settled himself.

“With pleasure,” he said, reaching into the bag to remove a torch and drop in the mini TARDIS. As soon as he felt securely situated I sped towards the door. All around us wings beat and jaws snapped, but the Doctor wielded his torch like a sword to defend us while I pointed mine straight forward, lighting our way out the door.

When we emerged into the open sky, I whooped for joy. I guided us upwards and picked up speed. We left the temple and the ruined city behind and soared over the desert.

The creatures followed us, of course. Their huge eyes shone green when the torchlight struck them. The wind from their massive wings was strong enough to create turbulence. I veered and wove, trying to shake them, but everywhere I turned there was another one. The lights couldn’t point in enough directions at once. I felt the Doctor shudder against me as one struck at his back.

“Hang on!” he yelled as he wrapped both arms around me and put his hands over mine on the control section of the pole. He shoved downwards, sending us into a steep corkscrewing dive. Our pursuers dove behind us, screeching and grappling with each other midair. I held on so tightly my fingers hurt. Just when I was absolutely convinced that we were going to hit the ground he pulled up. We skimmed over the ground, but I heard a few thunks from creatures that had not been so coordinated.

“Fly low and dodge the rocks,” he advised, returning to his torch-waving duties.

“Thanks, Mr. Back Seat Driver. Without you I’d never have guessed about the rocks. Shall I dodge the cacti as well?” I grouched, but I smiled all the same. I flew close to every obstacle we came by and wove in tight turns. More of the pursuit dropped behind. I climbed steeply, then dropped back down with a hard turn and a last second pull-up to match the Doctor’s. It was hard on the stomach, but flight added all sorts of fun to the old running for my life routine.

With the clouds of creatures around us considerably thinner, I piloted the aerocycle back above the major obstacles and increased the speed. With the engines pushing hard and no creatures already in front of us, we began to outpace them.

Soon we flew alone. I sighed with relief, slowing down slightly to appreciate the beauty. The sky stretched low over us, as thick with stars as paint spatters on a Jackson Pollock painting. Starlight transformed the desert’s rocky spires into fairy castles. I marveled as every crisp breath swirled into my lungs. Even the piercing pain in my leg and aching of the rest of my body only made me feel more alive.

“Am I still headed towards the TARDIS?” I asked, realizing that all that weaving had left me slightly disoriented.

The Doctor pointed just slightly off my heading. He spoke low and close, his breath puffing into my ear. “Nearly. Make for the second star to the right and straight on ‘til morning.”

I corrected our course and leaned back into his chest, luxuriating in the cool of the night air, the solidity of his presence, and the freedom to relax a bit. My relaxation was cut short by the feeling of moisture against my back.

“You’re hurt,” I pointed out.

“Am I bleeding on you? Sorry about that.”

“Hey, I bled on you earlier. You’ve got the right to payback, but that feels like a lot of blood. I’m just concerned about you passing out from blood loss before we get back.”

“I think I can make it for the next two minutes. You can see the TARDIS now.” There it was, white paint ghostly in the starlight. The “tickets” sign was on, lighting our way back.

I descended in a slow loop around the TARDIS, easing down right in front of the door. When my feet scraped the ground, the stirrup tendrils unwrapped. I slid off, wobbling slightly under my own weight.

“Well, add sore bum to the list of injuries we’ve picked up today,” I said, rubbing the offended body part. “That aerocycle’s not exactly built for comfort.”

“No, it’s built for speed,” agreed the Doctor as he opened the TARDIS door. “Although I think having fewer tooth marks is comfortable.” I laughed and pulled the aerocycle across the threshold.

We stood in the console room, staring at each other in the light. He looked truly battered, and judging by the look on his face I didn’t look much better. Without a conscious decision, I found myself closing the distance between us and wrapping him in a hug. He winced, but before I could pull away his arms were around me, holding me tightly. My various physical injuries protested, but the sound of his twin heartbeat was a different kind of healing.

“I thought I was going to lose you,” I confided, too relieved to censor myself.

“I thought we were both lost for a while there,” he replied softly.

“Pretty tough, us,” I said proudly, looking up at him through my lashes.

“Not tough enough to put off a trip to the medical bay,” he said, pulling away. “I seem to be going a bit overboard on the retaliatory bleeding on you.”

“I’ll say. You’ve now soaked both sides of my top. My _white_ top. Well, the wardrobe room’s white top.”

“Don’t act too innocent. That blood on your jeans smells entirely human.”

We limped to the medical bay. Once there, I met an unexpected dilemma.

“Right. Where’s your worse bite? Let me have a look at it,” I ordered him in my best nurse Rose mode.

“Nope. _You_ have a seat on the table so I can examine that leg,” he said, crossing his arms and giving me his most stubborn expression. The effect was spoiled by the way he swayed slightly.

“I have one bite. You’ve got more. You first.” I put my hands on my hips and tried to look immobile. I hoped I didn’t have to do this for long, because I was having to put almost all my weight on the non-bleeding leg. We stared at each other. Finally I looked away. This staring contest was not helping anyone, and he would probably beat me eventually.

“Whatever. Do the bite on my leg, but all my smaller scratches can wait until you’re patched up,” I gave in, sitting down on the exam table. At that same instant, however, the Doctor also sat on the table and spoke over me.

“Fine. Promise you won’t bleed to death while you work and I’ll go first,” he grumbled. I was thoroughly startled, realizing that he must be pretty bad off if he gave in so quickly. For an instant we both sat on the table, having reached a new impasse, but my reaction was to laugh while his was to jump back to his feet and pull the bloody shoe off my foot.

“Never mind. I win!” he smirked.

“You win, if we’re using some new definition of ‘win’ that means losing more blood,’ I acquiesced with a sigh. The Doctor began to rummage around the cabinets for supplies while I tried to roll my jeans up to expose the wound. They were a bit too tight to roll up all the way to the knee, so I stripped them off. When the Doctor turned back to face me, he suddenly seemed to find something very interesting on the floor. He knelt to work on my wound, but his gaze never once lifted above my knees. Oh. My Doctor in the other universe had seen me in my knickers several times, so it hadn’t occurred to me to give warning. (Mostly he’d seen them in medical situations, plus the occasional need to change into a disguise while hiding from our pursuit in closets. Then there was the time in his chattier incarnation that a set of angry locals confiscated all our clothes before flinging us in a cell together. He spent the entire time babbling twice as fast and disjointedly as usual, which I hadn’t previously believed possible. The truly amusing part was that he delivered the whole monolog while facing a wall, not turning his head once. The mole between his shoulder blades was shaped like Australia.) I grabbed a blanket from a shelf and tied it around my waist with a sigh. Honestly, nine hundred plus years old and a pair of ordinary pink cotton knickers made him act all strange.

He cleaned and disinfected the wounds with his quick, careful hands, then with a few sweeps of the dermal regenerator turned the piercing pain into a vague itch as my skin knit back together. The instant he finished I was on my feet and tugging off his jacket.

“Your turn. Sit and strip.” I kept my tone playful, trying to conceal my worry at his grayish color. When his jumper was off I winced at the depth and number of wounds on his chest. Fortunately, the beasts hadn’t managed to rip anything vital. He also had a nasty gash on his head, but his jacket, heavy jeans, and boots had kept wounds elsewhere fairly shallow. He’d lost a fair amount of blood, but I’d seen fragile humans recover from much worse. He’d be fine, but I had come so close to too late. I set to work with his direction in using some of the equipment.

Eventually his wounds were closed and he had swallowed three blood-replenishing pills (a handy invention Earth won’t see for a century after my time). We’d scanned each other to check for internal injuries from the fall. I’d drunk another bottle of water and made sure he drank too. My nose was set back in place, my skinned knees sealed, and my blisters soothed. Between us we’d emptied the large bottle of anti-bruise ointment.

“You should get some sleep,” he suggested.

“So should you, but I need a cuppa tea first. No, on second thought I need a shower first, then tea….Actually, I think the tea before the shower after all. Care for some?” I was tired enough that decisions didn’t come easily. Cleanliness would be wonderful, but a day with that much near-death demanded a warm soothing beverage.

“I would suggest combining the two for efficiency, but I think drinking tea in the shower would lose on all counts, so tea it is.” He reached into a closet and pulled out two dressing gowns, shrugging one on over his still-tender bare chest and throwing the other at me. I put it on and shuffled barefoot towards the kitchen.

The TARDIS kitchen was messier than my other Doctor ever left it and the collection of souvenir mugs was somewhat different (no “What happens on Raxacoricofallapatorious stays on Raxacoricofallapatorious,” yes to a red mug reading “I left my heart in New San Francisco.” However, I was thoroughly tickled to see this Doctor choose the same “Time travelers do it in four dimensions” mug that my first Doctor and Jack used to squabble over.) Otherwise the kitchen was just the same across universes. With my hands wrapped around a warm mug I began to relax enough to worry about topics beyond imminent demise.

“We still don’t have any idea where the Ruacmord who built that temple went, do we?” I asked, staring at the model TARDIS that had been a most effective lure and now made a most effective centerpiece.

“We don’t even know for sure that it _is_ Ruacmord-built and not just some unrelated homicidal cult who chanced upon the same slogan.”

“But you think it is.”

He nodded, gripping his mug tightly.

“So what’re we going to do about that temple? Should we go back in time and see who’s building it? Ooh, I know…can we blow it up?” I pictured the temple exploding in a humongous fireball. That would be _so_ satisfying.

“Absolutely not on the first–if we accidentally did something to prevent it from being built just as we saw it, we could cause a paradox–and I don’t think the second would do much good.”

“It’s a useless gesture, but wouldn’t it be fun to watch it collapse?”

“Well, yes,” he admitted, the corner of his mouth twitching in a repressed smile, “but we’re still not doing it.”

“Damn.”

“If the Ruacmord survived the Time War, this won’t be the last we see of them. I’ll set up the TARDIS to look for evidence of their presence, but the whole of space-time is a pretty large search area. If they’ve covered their tracks well they might be impossible to find except by waiting for them to show themselves. All we can do is go about our business and keep our eyes open,” he said darkly. He stared over my shoulder, hands clenched into fists on the table. I wrapped my hands around his, prying his fingers loose so he stopped digging his nails into his palms so hard. With the dirt and the raw barely-healed gashes, he could have stepped straight from a battlefield, and his eyes told me that his mind was still in the war. I was so concerned that I nearly didn’t notice his pronoun choice.

The last _we_ see of them. _Our_ business. Plural.

“Drink your tea before it gets cold,” I directed, releasing his hands and reminding myself to be patient. We drank in silence for a few moments. Gradually his awareness seemed to return to this room. He refilled our cups from the teapot, adding milk to his with obsessive care to make sure he didn’t accidentally pour in more than a tiny splash, just like my first big-eared Doctor.

“So…if we’re not blowing up anything around here, what _is_ on the business agenda?” I asked. Oh, let those plurals be intentional.

“TARDIS repair first, of course. After that, London.”

London, where he’d been trying to leave me when the TARDIS brought us here. Nothing had changed. Anger blazed up; I saved his life and now he was ditching me! What an ingrate! The anger dissipated as quickly as it had arrived. _Not_ saving his life was never an option. I wouldn’t want an invitation just because of a perceived debt. Life and TARDIS travel were both too precious to barter. I didn’t dare meet his eyes, afraid my own showed too much. I looked instead at his elegant collarbone framed by the dressing gown. He didn’t want to worry about anyone else’s life, and our troubles in the temple must have only strengthened his conviction that he was putting me at risk. Suddenly I felt utterly exhausted, far too tired to argue with him or even fight off the constriction in my throat or the heat building in my eyes.

“I’m going to bed,” I said abruptly, standing up. He stood up too, planting his body between me and the door. With a single finger under my chin he tilted my head up so I looked at him. He wore a serious expression that looked like the prequel to a difficult explanation.

“Please…I understand already. Don’t say anything more.” I tried to dodge around him, hoping to escape before the empty feeling in my stomach swallowed me, but he blocked me.

“Look at me, Rose. I’m taking you back to London because you said you wanted to tell your family before going traveling.” His blue eyes locked with mine, searching for the response in my frozen expression. “That is, if you still want to come.”

I was flying again, or so it felt. Surely my feet weren’t touching the ground, and that breathlessness must be the thrill of a swoop. My heart soared high enough to touch the stars.

“I still! I very much still!” I finally managed to say.

“Be sure about this, Rose. Today could have ended differently. Someday I might not have that insight at the right time. Someday you might run too slowly. I can’t promise you safety.”

His intense tone dragged me out of the sky. I thought. I thought of my family, and how risks to me could hurt them too. I remembered my work, which was courageous and meaningful (when not bogged down in paperwork). I was no longer a 19 year-old without responsibilities or purpose. I considered the Doctor in front of me, who was not quite the Doctor I’d left behind. He didn’t share any of our treasured memories and inside jokes. The choice I made to stay with my other Doctor no longer applied, and I had to make a new decision. Nevertheless, making the choice to follow the Doctor was like writing a formal mathematical proof for a rule that was already known from the evidence: I needed to go through all the elaborate steps to end up exactly where I’d expected to be the whole time.

“He swore that he’d keep me safe. The other Doctor, I mean. My mum made him promise at first, but he kept repeating it, over and over. I believed him. My mother would say he was true to his promise–after all, I stayed alive–but when I got trapped in this universe I didn’t feel like he’d kept his word. I was on the far side of hell and not feeling very alive, certainly not feeling well. If you made a promise like his to me, I couldn’t believe it, not entirely. I don’t want a beautiful, hollow vow anymore. I’d rather have something real, even if it’s a little messy and scary. I’ll just trust that I’ve got you on my side, which makes me about as safe as anyone can hope to be.” I kept my eyes locked with his, hoping he could see that I meant every word. He nodded his acceptance.

“Messy and scary. I can handle that,” he said with a rueful smile.

“You’re right about the messy. In my universe you were always getting annoyed at me for not putting my stuff away, but this TARDIS needs a cleaning the way I need a bath,” I frowned at the electronic project flotsam strewn across the table and the crumbs on the counter.

“When you go a few decades without a guest, housekeeping begins to seem like less of a priority,” he said, looking around as if seeing the mess for the first time.

“The TARDIS as bachelor pad. The look doesn’t suit her,” I observed.

The engine hum revved up, sounding a bit eager. The Doctor looked chagrined.

“Sorry old girl,” he addressed the ceiling. I chuckled.

“We’ll get her fit for company.” Suddenly as a realization hit me. “Speaking of company, I’m going to have to take you to see my mum.”

The Doctor’s eyes widened in worry. “Is she going to slap me?” The Destroyer of Worlds sure looked like a deer in the headlights at the idea of my mother.

“I can’t promise you safety,” I deadpanned.

“For your sake, I’ll brave the danger,” he said with great mock solemnity, taking my hand. I lost control of my face, breaking into a grin that turned into a yawn.

“Go clean yourself up and get some sleep,” he commanded.

“Doctor’s orders?” I asked, voice slurring as another yawn followed the first.

“You don’t seem very good at taking those. Call it Doctor’s helpful suggestion, which he’s about to follow himself.”

I allowed myself to be herded down the corridor. My door was first. Standing in the threshold, I remembered one last thing I needed to know.

“Doctor! You haven’t told me yet what you were about to say when I ran off.”

He hesitated, face impassive, as if trying to decide whether he should still tell me when no longer in mortal danger. Just as I was about to sigh and tell him to forget it, his face shifted and softened, a trace of a smile on his lips.

“I’m glad I met you,” he said. He held my gaze for a long moment before turning and walking down the corridor. I soared again.

Here’s something I didn’t know before setting out with the Doctor for the first time: once you leave home you can never really return. Even if you can revisit the places and people that once defined home, places and people change. They can no longer produce the same feeling of peace and belonging. You change too. The good news is that if you get very, very lucky and find the right conditions you can create a new home for the new you. I’d left my first home and been torn from my second. Since then, I’d yet to find anywhere I could imagine building anew. Now, at last, I found what might be just the right site, sheltered in the eye of the storm.


End file.
